Today le I present the singer, guitarist and composer Juan Quintero. When I interviewed him at his house in January 2011, he was still part of the young generation of musicians dedicated to the renewal of Argentine folklore.
Juan Quintero was born on July 22, 1977 in San Miguel de Tucumán. His parents Coco and Marilí were musicians and sang in the Provincial Choir of Tucumán.
So Juan grew up with Argentine and Brazilian folklore. But his parents also listened to classical music and jazz. At the age of 14, Juan began to learn to play the guitar. In 1998 he moved on the advice of Juan Falú to La Plata, the capital of the province of Buenos Aires, to study choral conducting at the University of this city.
In 1999 he founded his trio Aca Seca with the pianist Andrés Beeuwsaert and the percussionist Mariano Cantero. The repertoire of the Trio consisted mainly of songs by Juan Quintero.
When Juan recorded his first Compact of his own songs in 2002, he immediately received the Folklore Revelation Award for the & nbsp; nbsp; newspaper & nbsp; La Nación. Since 2000, he has also performed in a duet with singer Luna Monti.
Other singers and musicians with whom he has shared the stage are Mercedes Sosa, Carlos Aguirre, Juan Falú, Lilian Herrero and many others. His songs and compositions are now sung and played by the most important Argentine musicians and are very popular among Argentine youth.
In our conversation, Juan Quintero told me how much the poets of previous generations, such as Manuel Castilla and Jaime Dávalos, mean to him. He spoke of the great interest that youth has aroused in Argentine folklore.
It is not easy to earn a living without participating in purely commercial events such as the Cosquín Folklore Festival or certain television programs, he told me. But there are several cultural initiatives such as Coqui Ortiz’s and his project “La ronda” or the cycle of Juan Falu: “Guitarras del mundo”.
More and more smaller record labels are supporting the innovative and independent folk scene. All of his colleagues who, like Juan, are on this non-commercial path and are true to themselves, enjoy what they do. And that’s the most important thing, Juan told me.
Listen for yourselves everything that Juan Quintero, this brave and talented singer, guitarist and composer, told me one afternoon in the summer of 2011 while we had a mate.
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La Prensa: Juan Quintero’s sensitivity more powerful than isolation and virtuality
01-06-2020 | 10:15
With a production of the Teatro Picadero and under the title of “Las cosas que mecompany” the paid presentation that brought together around 500 people offered 75 minutes of music that the artist from Tucuman performed on guitar and voice.
Giving back to a piano and a wall with exposed bricks and enjoying a sound and light scheme far superior to so much live on social networks that swarm in quarantine, the performance did not stop depending on the benefits of the connection to the internet of the virtual audience.
The composer and performer reviewed some twenty songs, the vast majority of them of recognized weight in his musical projects with Aca Seca and in duos with Luna Monti, Edgardo Cardozo and Luis Pescetti, among other esthetic adventures essential to understanding music current root.
Beyond the context, Juan ratified the exquisite taste to invent sonorities between the strings of his guitar, sing with that small great voice and assume a songbook of impressive beauty.
The singular and exceptional event had as an addition the fact that it was his only solo performance of 2020 because, as he revealed in an interview with Télam, “I reinvented myself as a teacher and assuming that I am not going to play gives me a little calm so as not to be in a constant wait”.
“Good afternoon. Thank you for letting me into your homes as I am into mine. I’m going to imagine them and imagine them and I’m going to hold on to those things to share. It is a strange and new situation, but we are trying to maintain ourselves as best we can and here is mine, “he announced from his home in the Villa Crespo neighborhood of Buenos Aires.
Immediately he did a review that combined fragments of his own songs (among others “Adolorido” and “Maricón”), he reflected on “doing without a little applause and see what happens when the songs fade in their own time” and made a full version of “Ride”.
“I feel like playing guitar”, he commented as a prologue to “Solo cueca” and “Rosario Pastrana” but immediately changed the tone of the proposal with “Clavelito blanco”.
“A lot of things have taken on another dimension and the songs took on another feeling inside of one and everything is resignified. And this is one of them, by Jorge Fandermole”, she commented before embracing the overwhelming “When”.
Before surprising with the old piece “La Paloma”, he said that “my dad told me that he wanted to sing a song in particular and I discovered that it was a song that has more versions than ‘Imagine’, by John Lennon”.
In that rescue and recovery, “Chiquitita” was also included, whose melody he attributed to “a Peruvian who was called ‘the hummingbird of the Andes’” and which he put on after the zamba “Carita Morena” and its gem “ Little gifts.”
Aware of the impact of his minimalist version of Juan Luis Guerra’s song “Amapola”, he anticipated it “so if you want, prepare the chorus” and left it halfway through singing “that’s how you continue” and toasted with a glass of red wine .
Towards the end of the tour, he revealed that “I’m spending quarantine with my brother Santiago and I’m going to invite him” and both shared “some coplitas that Fander wrote like that very in passing and they are spectacular joy pills” and that are titled “Singers”.
Also as a duo and not without irony, he introduced saying “we have a hit with my brother” and they did “Saudades da Bahia”, by Dorival Caymmi.
Already in the closing that he added “Contento”, “Bandera” and another visit to “La Paloma”, he joked sliding “we’re leaving. Hopefully” and he said goodbye with wishes of “good life, strength, patience and solidarity for all of us”.
Wikipedia
Song: Gifts (Regalitos)
A flower picked on the street, baby
A country with its flag
A garden to your taste and your size, baby
And an afternoon with a hose
A story told with songs, baby
Whispering slowly
With pirate princesses and dragons, baby
And mosquito pills
Calesita once a week, baby
The umbrella when it rains
Treats after the morning, baby
My love whenever you want
An armchair with your shape and mine, baby
Next to the TV.
A bite on the foot so you’ll laugh, baby
Heal it, heal it if it hurts
Scented crispy cookies, baby
Spread into pieces
To feed the pigeons, baby
Or retrace your steps
Prayer locks and sleeplessness, baby
To try to protect you.
Bracelets and hairpins, baby
For lucky charms
I will keep forever and just in case, baby
The purest thing in my life.
A flowerbed of kisses and hugs, baby
To see you flourish baby.